Determining journal article citation classics in school psychology: An updated bibliometric analysis using Google Scholar, Scopus, and Web of Science

Bibliometric analyses have been the primary form of examining and evaluating literature within a field of study. By focusing on citation count and source, researchers have been able to identify journal articles considered to be high impact in reach and relevance, branding them "citation classics" in a field. As time progresses, technology, methods, and metrics for conducting these analyses have improved, and although there have been several studies designed to identify citation classics and patterns of citations supporting them in school psychology literature, none have done so in an updated, comprehensive manner. To address these limitations, the current study aims to replicate and extend these works in three major ways: (a) including 11 primary school psychology journals in the search, (b) using three of the largest reference databases, and (c) collapsing results across these databases to accurately identify the most highly cited articles. The search yielded evidence of more than 12,000 articles accruing more than 500,000 citations. The 100 most highly cited articles were identified, and the majority were classified as explicative (n = 63) and quantitative (n = 70). Themes of bullying, burnout, and teacher-child relationships were the prominent focus. School psychology's citation classics tended to feature quantitative research and examine the relations between constructs, and several revealed a new category of citations classics: the methodological and statistical article.

Editorial boards of 45 journals devoted to school and educational psychology: International characteristics and publication patterns

To assess and promote internationally representative scholarship, several past studies have examined the geographic affiliation of journals’ editorial board members and authors. The present study is the first known to examine this with journals devoted to school and educational psychology. After systematically identifying all peer-reviewed scholarly journals around the globe that are specifically devoted to school or educational psychology ( N = 45), the goals of this study were to (a) report key characteristics about each journal’s editorial board, and (b) examine the extent to which geographic affiliation (country where one is employed) is consistent among a journal’s editorial board members and recent authors. One key finding revealed that editorial boards of the discipline’s journals represent individuals from all global regions, but many global regions (e.g. Africa, Eastern Europe, Latin America) are underrepresented. Another finding showed that the vast majority of journals evidence strong similarities in geographic affiliation between editorial board members and authors. Findings, implications, limitations, and future research directions are discussed in the context of internationalization.

A global examination of peer-reviewed, scholarly journal outlets devoted to school and educational psychology

One proposed way to support internationalization is to enhance internationally representative and culturally informed scholarship within a respective discipline, and academic journals are a primary source of scholarship for most disciplines. Therefore, to build upon efforts to assess and promote internationally representative scholarship, it is necessary to identify and know more about the discipline-specific journals within a field—including those published in different parts of the world and in different languages. The goals of this study were to (a) identify all peer-reviewed scholarly journals around the globe that are specifically devoted to publishing scholarship about school or educational psychology, and (b) obtain relevant information about those journals (e.g., information about the mission of each journal, article accessibility, language characteristics, etc.). One key finding indicated clear evidence of internationality in the discipline, but there are important limitations with respect to representation aspects of internationalization. Other findings showed that many journals offer free access to scholarly articles and that the vast majority of journals aim to publish scholarship that influences practice. All findings, implications, limitations, and future research directions are discussed in the context of internationalization within school and educational psychology, and are connected to discipline-relevant research, practice, training, collaboration, or advocacy.

Geographically representative scholarship and internationalization in school and educational psychology: A bibliometric analysis of eight journals from 2002-2016

Although the discipline of school and educational psychology is arguably international (e.g., relevant research and practice is evident in more than 80 countries), there has been limited research examining the international scholarship published in school and educational psychology journals. Such an assessment is important because it provides one important metric for better understanding the field's level of internationalization. The purpose of this study was to evaluate every article (N = 4456) published from 2002 to 2016 across eight school and educational psychology journals that publish international scholarship. Each article's authorship and participant data were coded and reported in terms of respective country and geographical region. Research questions examined, for example, how the published scholarship aligns with international employment data for school psychologists and whether particular journals published a geographically wider breadth of articles. Overall findings indicated that although the field of school psychology is present in more than 80 countries, the overall scholarship in the reviewed journals predominantly features participants living in, and authors working in, North America or Western Europe. However, one journal (School Psychology International) published relatively more articles with participants from outside of these geographic regions. Also, journals affiliated with a national professional organization largely differed in their percentage of "within-nation" publications (e.g., articles with participants living in the same nation that sponsors the respective journal). Explanations of the data are discussed and several recommendations are made that, if followed, could improve the internationalization and geographical representation of scholarship in school and educational psychology.

Facilitators and barriers to the provision of therapeutic interventions by school psychologists

There is growing concern internationally about the prevalence of mental health problems among school-aged children and their access to specialist services. School psychologists (SPs) may be one group of professionals well-positioned to support the well-being of children and young people, due to their position as applied psychologists working within educational settings and their capability to deliver therapeutic interventions. This research considers findings from a large scale, United Kingdom (UK)-wide survey of the views of SPs (N = 455) about facilitators and barriers to the provision of therapeutic interventions to children and young people. Principal Components Analyses of ranked questionnaire responses yielded three components: The role of the SP; training and practice; and support and psychology service context. Quantitative findings were then triangulated, using qualitative responses from the survey. Greater direction and clarification of the role of the SP as a provider of therapeutic interventions is recommended, particularly given the diverse roles undertaken by SPs and competing demands, particularly from assessment activities.

Bullying and victimization: Predictive role of individual, parental, and academic factors

This study explored the roles of individual factors (age, gender, locus of control, self-esteem, and loneliness), parenting style, and academic achievement in discriminating students involved in bullying (as bullies, victims, and bully/victims) from those not involved. Participants comprised 742 middle school students (393 females, 349 males). The results of multinomial logistic regression analysis indicated that a higher locus of control, lower strictness/supervision scores, increased age, and being male increased the likelihood of being a bully; a higher locus of control, higher loneliness score, and a lower acceptance/involvement score increased the likelihood of being a victim; and higher loneliness and psychological autonomy scores and lower acceptance/involvement, strictness/supervision, and academic achievement scores increased the likelihood of being a bully/victim. Although parental style variables play an important role in involvement in bullying, the individual factor loneliness is a more powerful predictor than other predictors in discriminating victims and bully/victims from uninvolved students. Age and gender are stronger predictors than other predictors in discriminating bullies from uninvolved students.

Treatment integrity of interventions with children in School Psychology International from 1995–2010

Over the past two decades, the role of school psychologists internationally has shifted from a more narrow focus on assessment to a broader emphasis on problem solving and delivering intervention services via consultation. Defining interventions is important for replication and translation of practice. Further, to make valid, data-based decisions about intervention effectiveness, school psychologists need to consider student outcomes in light of treatment integrity data. Reviews of treatment outcome research in many applied fields indicate that although many researchers operationally define interventions, a majority of researchers fail to report treatment integrity data. The purpose of this study was to review the treatment integrity data reported in intervention studies published in School Psychology International between 1995–2010. Results indicate a majority of published studies include neither a definition of the independent variable nor quantitative treatment integrity data. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Black students’ recollections of pathways to resilience: Lessons for school psychologists

Drawing on narrative data from a multiple case study, I recount the life stories of two resilient Black South African university students to theorize about the processes that encouraged these students, familiar with penury and parental illiteracy, to resile. I aimed to uncover lessons for school psychologists about resilience, and their role in its promotion, from these students’ recollections. To this end, I first synthesize what the resilience literature reports as generic processes of resilience. Thereafter, I illustrate how these processes were common to the students’ stories of resilience, drawing attention to how Africentricism shaped these processes. The understanding of resilience that flows from this case study illustrates the more recent contentions that resilience theory needs to account for the influence of culture on positive adjustment and translate this into culturally sensitive interventions towards resilience. The broad implications for school psychologists include recognition that resilience processes are nuanced by the socio-cultural ecology in which youths are situated and awareness that resilience processes require multiple ecosystemic partners. For school psychologists working with students of African descent, the importance of understanding how resilience processes are informed by an Africentric world view is foregrounded, along with attentiveness to the caveats implicit in this lesson.

Does it work in Finland? School psychological services within a successful system of basic education

The Finnish educational system has become a subject of wide interest during the 2000s due to the country’s success in the OECD’s PISA surveys. One might expect that the challenges of school psychology would also have been solved successfully. However, in reality, Finnish school psychology is suffering from the same types of problems as in many other countries: No large-scale shift from reactive work to active promotion and prevention has taken place, and the number of school psychologists is insufficient. In the present article we delineate critical factors that have hindered the more adequate and effective use of psychological expertise in Finnish educational system. Necessary actions for future development are outlined.

Epistemological beliefs as predictors of self-regulated learning strategies in middle school students

This study examines the contribution of epistemological beliefs to middle school students’ reported use of self-regulated learning strategies. One hundred and sixty 8th and 9th graders from three public middle schools participated in the study. Gender was about equally represented in the sample (89 girls, 71 boys). During the group examination phase, the participants were asked to complete a Greek version of Epistemological Beliefs Questionnaire (EBQ), based on Schommer-Aikins, Mau, Brookhart and Hutter’s (2000) middle school version of EBQ. During the individual examination phase, they were interviewed using the Self-Regulated Learning Interview Schedule (SRLIS). Epistemological beliefs about the speed of learning and the ability to learn significantly predicted the reported use of cognitive as well as motivational regulation strategies. The educational implications of the results are discussed in relation to cultural influences on the formation of epistemological beliefs.

A cross-cultural comparison of teacher ratings of child adjustment and behavioral problems

This study examines similarities and differences in teacher ratings of behavioral problems and adaptive skills between a sample of 320 students from Anguilla, BWI and 315 children from the United States of America using the Behavior Assessment System for Children (BASC; Reynolds & Kamphaus, 1992 ). The study also compared teacher ratings of boys and girls in the Caribbean sample. Analyses of variance (ANOVA) revealed that Anguillian teachers rated their students as having higher mean school problems, while the mean score for adaptive skills was higher for US students. Effect sizes were small, though, indicating that little of the variance in ratings was attributable to cultural group. Boys in the Caribbean sample had significantly higher mean scores on externalizing and school problems. Girls were rated at having more adaptive skills. Again, effect sizes for the differences were small. Scientific and practice implications are offered.

The long-term effects of early parent involvement and parent expectation in the USA

Building on social-cognitive theory and the expectancy-value theory, this study indicated that early parent expectations for children’s post-secondary educational attainment have a stronger effect on 8th-grade achievement than home-based parental involvement. With a nationally representative sample of kindergarten students and their parents in the United States of America, Structural Equation Modeling was employed in order to discern longitudinal effects on achievement via mediators. For instance, expectations held by parents in kindergarten exert much of their positive effect on adolescent academic achievement via expectations held in 8th grade. Student expectations (which are influenced by parental expectations) also significantly predict 8th grade achievement. Parent involvement in homework and grade checking in 8th grade has a slight negative effect on achievement. Home literacy in kindergarten predicts achievement in 8th grade indirectly via kindergarten achievement. These results indicate that parents can have a positive impact on academic achievement through early home literacy and maintaining a strong hope that their children will succeed in college. Because early parent expectations have long lasting effects on children, parent involvement interventions for young children need to be developed that also target elevating parental expectations. This study further clarifies the effects of the family environment on educational outcomes.

The effects of anger management on children’s social and emotional outcomes: A meta-analysis

The occurrence of violent behaviors and bullying in schools continues to be a recognized problem among students and school personnel. The concern caused by these behaviors have led many schools to implement anger management and other impulse control based programs for at-risk students in an effort to prevent many of these incidences. This study was a comprehensive, meta-analytic synthesis of the literature to assess the effectiveness of these interventions, using a total of 60 studies from 1979–2010 for analysis. Results indicated an overall effect size (ES) of −0.27, showing a small to moderate intervention effect in reducing children’s negative emotional and behavioral outcomes including anger, aggression, and loss of self control. Many different types of anger management components were found to be effective in promoting positive outcomes. Implications for school psychologists are discussed.

Chinese teachers’ evaluation criteria as reflected in narrative student evaluations: Implications for psychological services in schools

To increase school psychologists’ understanding of school contextual culture in China, this study used a qualitative research method to investigate 30 Chinese elementary school teachers’ evaluation criteria as reflected in narrative student evaluations. In the study, 450 narrative student evaluations were coded and analysed. Overall, results showed that Chinese teachers’ evaluation criteria primarily included moral development, effort and learning, as they were referenced most frequently in students’ narrative evaluations. Teachers’ positive comments tended to focus on moral character, effort, and learning; negative comments tended to focus on effort, behavior, and learning. Implications are discussed for school psychological services in China and in other countries with a cultural orientation different from the Western individualist culture.